Saturday, February 13, 2010

Krugman: Clueless, Arts funding, Job losses

"On February 1, 2010, President Obama released his proposed budgetfor fiscal year 2011, which includes funding cuts to both theNational Endowment for the Arts (NEA) and the National Endowment forthe Humanities (NEH). The funding to each institution will be cut bymore than $6 million, dropping their current budgets of $167.5million to $161.3 million. (....) It should be emphasized that whilePresident Obama is cutting funding for the arts, he is simultaneouslymaking significant increases in military spending, in fact, thePentagon's own statistics show Obama is now spending more on themilitary than did former President Bush."

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From: Michael W. Hathaway

It's hard for me to believe the terrible wrongness of Obama's politicalcalculations, quite putting aside the moral ones. This is either immoralPANDERING, or political STUPIDITY.

I'm with Simon Johnson here: how is it possible, at this late date, forObama to be this clueless?

The lead story on Bloomberg right now contains excerpts from an interviewwith Business Week which tells us:President Barack Obama said he doesn't "begrudge" the $17 million bonusawarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the$9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, notingthat some athletes take home more pay.

The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question thatwhile $17 million is "an extraordinary amount of money" for Main Street,"there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don't getto the World Series either, so I'm shocked by that as well."

"I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen," Obama said in theinterview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, whichwill appear on newsstands Friday. "I, like most of the American people,don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- marketsystem."

Obama sought to combat perceptions that his administration is anti-businessand trumpeted the influence corporate leaders have had on his economicpolicies. He plans to reiterate that message when he speaks to the BusinessRoundtable, which represents the heads of many of the biggest U.S.companies, on Feb. 24 in Washington.

Oh. My. God.

First of all, to my knowledge, irresponsible behavior by baseball playershasn't brought the world economy to the brink of collapse and cost millionsof innocent Americans their jobs and/or houses.

And more specifically, not only has the financial industry has been bailedout with taxpayer commitments; it continues to rely on a taxpayer backstopfor its stability. Don't take it from me, take it from the rating agencies:

The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard & Poor's towarn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bankof America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that thebanks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again.

The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earningbig bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wardsof the state. There's good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearancethat we're running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are publicbut gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obamawould understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what'shappening.

But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key toelectoral success is to trumpet "the influence corporate leaders have had onhis economic policies."

Paul Krugman is professor of Economics and International Affairs atPrinceton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugmanwas the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics. He is the author ofnumerous books, including The Conscience of A Liberal, and his most recent,The Return of Depression Economics.

Communities across the United States are experiencing the most difficulteconomic times since the Great Depression. Our region in particular issuffering under the weight of joblessness, foreclosures and escalatingincarceration rates.

Changes in the political landscape that led to President Obama's victory in2008 have not translated into changes in the quality of life for manyresidents of our region.

As reported by the Institute for Southern Studies in their recent report, 8out the 13 Southern states have unemployment rates over 10%, rank number 8of the 10 states with the lowest median income and occupy position number 11of the 15 states with the highest rates of incarceration.

The popular wisdom in the African American community says that when whiteAmerica gets a cold, the black community gets pneumonia. Clearly what is arough recession for the rest of the country is a Depression for AfricanAmericans. Black unemployment was 16.2% in December of last year incomparison to the white rate of 9%, a drop from November.

According to United for a Fair Economy, blacks earn 62 cents for everydollar of white income. Blacks have 10 cents of net worth for every dollarof white net wealth. Blacks are 3 times as likely to live in poverty aswhites. Black unemployment in North Carolina is a frightening 14%, 5 pointshigher than that for whites. This last statistic is the basis for a "socialstate of emergency."

What we need to bring an end to the suffering is a public jobs program thatpays living wages, provides training and offers sustainable employment.Billions of dollars have been spent to bring relief to the banking industrybut not nearly enough has been done for the working families in our urbanand rural communities.

We want a jobs program that provides funds for states, municipalities,non-profits and small businesses to immediately hire the long termedunemployed to do work that rebuilds our communities.

Weatherization, repair and rehabilitation of schools and other publicfacilities, daycare and other human services functions are examples of whatthe newly employed workers can do while helping local economies with theincome and spending that has long been absent because of extremejoblessness. Tax incentives to small business that hire will not generateenough jobs at the rate they are needed.

Those lawmakers in Washington like the Congressional Black Caucus who haveadvocated a targeted approach to job creation have identified the best wayto help those in greatest need. Communities with the highest rates ofunemployment and greatest number of unemployed low income persons shouldreceive a rapid infusion of federal dollars that will come from redirectingfunds that were set aside to assist the financial institutions andincreasing taxes on the wealthy.

We are asking that our Congressional delegation, along with our state andlocal officials join us in supporting legislation like the Put America toWork Act, HR 4268 that will create 1 million jobs. There are otherinitiatives like the Community Jobs Emergency Employment Program beingadvanced by groups like the Center for Community Change which calls for 2million jobs over a two-year period.

And we call on our friends to support the efforts of coalitions like Jobsfor America Now that call for an extension of unemployment insurancebenefits and COBRA benefits, in addition to a robust jobs program. We arewilling to work with state government in crafting projects that will utilizethe funds from a public jobs program without displacing current employees.

Regrettably, the initial federal government efforts were aimed at WallStreet. More recently the target for support has been the so-called "MainStreet." We would add to that a call for aid for "Martin Luther King Blvd"and "South Street."

Communities that were struggling before the recession have to be a priorityif the entire state and nation is going to recover.

Ajamu Dillahunt is a long-time labor and community activist in the South,outreach director at the N.C. Justice Center and co-chair of the board ofthe Institute for Southern Studies. The following speech was given at apress conference for HKonJ, an annual march in Raleigh, N.C. promoting astate-wide progressive agenda. The march this year will take place onFebruary 13.

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Swing Riots Concert July 17th

In a Benefit Concert for FolkWorks

July 17th at 2 PM

at the

Tropico de Nopal Gallery, in Los Angeles, 1665 Beverly Boulevard, East of Alvarado.

SwingRiots is an LA Jazz Gypsy Balkan Klezmer Folk ensemble with six versatile fully digitized members who recreate the brilliant music of two-finger Belgian Gypsy guitarist Django Reinhardt— quite a feat, in that it takes them only sixty fingers to accomplish what Django did with two. Perhaps that’s why the word genius is so often found within two syllables of Reinhardt’s legendary name.

But if you close your eyes, it hardly matters; you can drift back in time to the sweltering erotic nights of Paris’s Left Bank in the 1930s, when Reinhardt was remaking the landscape of modern Jazz, and having to relearn the guitar after suffering major burns in a 1928 fire that changed his life and modern music forever. Without the use of the third and fourth fingers on his left hand he played everything with just the two he had—and that proved to be enough.

Ed Pearl has done a bit of his own reshaping of the musical landscape of Los Angeles, as the creator of the legendary folk music club The Ash Grove in 1958, and had Django Reinhardt not passed away in 1953, he would surely have graced the Ash Grove stage as well, along with Muddy Waters, Bill Monroe, the New Lost City Ramblers, The Greenbriar Boys, Phil Ochs, Mance Libscomb, Lightning Hopkins, Flatt and Scruggs, Mississippi John Hurt, Jackie DeShannon and Ry Cooder.

Now Ed has embarked on a new venture, catching up with lost time as it were, and will present SwingRiots in his new summer concert series sponsored by Ash Grove Music (www.ashgrovemusic.com).

It will be a doubly special event, since it is a benefit concert for FolkWorks, LA’s free and only folk music magazine, now in its tenth year of continuous publication, covering the waterfront of LA’s sometimes bewildering variety of folk related solo performers, dance and instrumental groups and festivals, as well as national touring artists that come through town.

FolkWorks (www.folkworks.org) was just honored this past May with the Topanga Banjo-Fiddle Contest Music Legend Award for 2011, and needs the influx of funds from this extraordinary concert to keep the presses rolling, as it tries valiantly to beat the odds that have made magazine publishing a quixotic and oft-times heroic endeavor.

So support the Ash Grove, support FolkWorks, and enjoy an unparalleled afternoon of world music from the Lost Generation that these wonderful Los Angeles musicians have rediscovered, mastered and made their own. For this musical experience of a lifetime SwingRiots will be joined by vocal duet Jess Basta & Christine Tavares, formerly of VOCO in a variety of Yiddish and early jazz standards. Don’t you dare miss it! --Ross Altman